National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, New York, NY.

The concern with the negative impact on blacks of the national trend toward assessing aptitude achievement and intelligence almost solely through test instruction whose validity and/or administration method is often suspect is reflected in this document. It reports the conference proceedings of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Designed to explore certain issues regarding how testing impacts on public policy, this conference was, however, not designed to resolve all the issues in testing. Specific objectives include the following: (1) to elicit a set of recommendations that seek to deal with the issues and problems identified; (2) to elicit a rationale for the Task Force's recommendations that give meaning to and a basis for interpreting the recommendations; (3) to elicit suggestions for ways to implement the recommendations; (4) to present a summary of all issues considered with their pros and cons. Among the issues discussed are the following: the use and misuse of tests, the psychometric integrity of tests, public policy, and a fair testing code. The common threads running through the report show an awareness that some type of assessment is needed, that tests vastly influence the economic potential of human beings, and that test developers have a responsibility to tell what tests do and do not measure. (Author/AM)